Combining Switched TMAs and FDAs to Synthesize Dot-Shaped Beampatterns

• Published in: IEEE antennas and wireless propagation letters Vol. 20; no. 9; pp. 1716 - 1720
• Main Authors: Maneiro-Catoira, Roberto, Bregains, Julio, Garcia-Naya, Jose A., Castedo, Luis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-09-2021; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Antenna radiation patterns; Fourier series; Frequency diverse arrays (FDAs); Frequency modulation; Harmonic analysis; Offsets; Phase shifters; Phased arrays; Time-frequency analysis; time-modulated arrays (TMAs); Transmitting antennas
• ISSN: 1536-1225; 1548-5757
• DOI: 10.1109/LAWP.2021.3094936

The application of frequency offsets to the elements of a conventional phased array with variable phase shifters (VPSs) leads to frequency diverse arrays (FDAs) with the ability to provide range-angle spatial focusing. In this letter, we propose an innovative approach to FDA using switched time-modulated arrays (TMAs) instead of VPSs. The time modulation efficiency of the combined FDA-TMA approach is over 94% when using Kaiser windows to determine the frequency offsets. Such windows have the advantage of flexibly handling the tradeoff between the beam collection efficiency and the half power beamwidth without the need of difficult optimizations.